Greg made a bad bet. He could do strictly better, by his lights, by borrowing 10K, giving it to PauseAI, and paying back ~15K (10K + high interest) in 4 years. (Or he could just donate 10K to PauseAI. If he’s unable to do this, Vasco should worry about Greg’s liquidity in 4 years.) Or he could have gotten a better deal by betting with someone else; if there was a market for this bet, I claim the market price would be substantially more favorable to Greg than paying back 200% (plus inflation) over <4 years.
[Edit: the market for this bet is, like, the market for 4-year personal loans.]
Thanks for the comment, Zach! Jason suggested something similar to Greg:
As much as I may appreciate a good wager, I would feel remiss not to ask if you could get a better result for amount of home equity at risk by getting a HELOC and having a bank be the counterparty? Maybe not at lower dollar amounts due to fixed costs/fees, but likely so nearer the $250K point [Greg was willing to bet up to this] -- especially with the expectation that interest rates will go down later in the year.
I don’t have a stable income so I can’t get bank loans (I have tried to get a mortgage for the property before and failed—they don’t care if you have millions in assets, all they care about is your income[1], and I just have a relatively small, irregular rental income (Airbnb). But I can get crypto-backed smart contract loans, and do have one out already on Aave, which I could extend.).
Also, the signalling value of the wager is pretty important too imo. I want people to put their money where their mouth is if they are so sure that AI x-risk isn’t a near term problem. And I want to put my money where my mouth is too, to show how serious I am about this.
@OscarD and @calebp, I am just tagging you to let you know you are right that a major motivation for Greg is signalling his concern for AI risk (see quote just above).
Yes, this. The major motivation is signalling, or “putting my money where my mouth is”. But also, the loans available to me (e.g. Aave) might not have that much better interest rates over the timescale.
This isn’t really against Zach’s point, but presumably, a lot of Greg’s motivation here is signalling that he is serious about this belief and having a bunch of people in this community see it for advocacy reasons. I think that taking out a loan wouldn’t do nearly as well on the advocacy front as making a public bet like this.
This isn’t true if Greg values animal welfare donations above most non-AI things by a sufficient amount. He could have tried to shop around for more favorable conditions with someone else in EA circles but it seems pretty likely that he’d end up going with this one. There’s no market for these bets.
What’s the relevant threshold here? Greg has to prefer $10k going to animal charities in 3 years’ time over that $10k going partly to debt interest and partly to whatever he wants?
This isn’t true if Greg values animal welfare donations above most non-AI things by a sufficient amount.
I think Greg would have been happy to go ahead with this bet regardless of my donation plans.
He could have tried to shop around for more favorable conditions with someone else in EA circles but it seems pretty likely that he’d end up going with this one.
For reference, Greg has had a similar offer to this bet for around a year on X, although I guess many do not know about it (I did not until 2 months ago).
Yes, I would go ahead regardless of the other party’s plans for their winnings (but for the record I very much approve of Vasco’s valuing of animal welfare).
Want to chip in that the interest for this post and huge comment thread lends evidence towards the bet being good for Greg’s reason below, even if he could have done far better on the odds/financial front.
”Also, the signalling value of the wager is pretty important too imo. I want people to put their money where their mouth is if they are so sure that AI x-risk isn’t a near term problem. And I want to put my money where my mouth is too, to show how serious I am about this.”
I would be interested in @Greg_Colbourn’s thoughts here! Possibly part of the value is in generating discussion and publicly defending a radical idea, rather than just the monetary EV. But if so maybe a smaller bet would have made sense.
Yes (see commentsabove in this thread). I think a smaller amount would not have the same impact (there is already Caplan’s bet with Yudkowsky) - it needs to be actually a significant amount of money. I have actually offered to go up to $250k (worst case I can sell my rental house to pay off the bet; and I do have significant other investments).
So far I am in discussion with a couple of others for similar amounts to the bet in OP, but the problem of guaranteeing my payout is proving quite a difficult one[1]. I guess making it direct donations makes things a lot easier.
My preferred method is trading on my public reputation (which I value higher than the bet amounts); but I can’t expect people to take my word for it.
It could also be done by drawing up a contract with my house as collateral, but I’ve been told that this likely wouldn’t be enforceable.
Then there is using escrow (but the escrow needs to be trusted; and the funds tied up in the escrow—and I prefer to hold crypto, which complicates things).
Then there are crypto smart contracts, but these need to be trusted, and also massively overcollateralised to factor in deep market drawdowns (with the opportunity cost that brings).
Greg made a bad bet. He could do strictly better, by his lights, by borrowing 10K, giving it to PauseAI, and paying back ~15K (10K + high interest) in 4 years. (Or he could just donate 10K to PauseAI. If he’s unable to do this, Vasco should worry about Greg’s liquidity in 4 years.) Or he could have gotten a better deal by betting with someone else; if there was a market for this bet, I claim the market price would be substantially more favorable to Greg than paying back 200% (plus inflation) over <4 years.
[Edit: the market for this bet is, like, the market for 4-year personal loans.]
Thanks for the comment, Zach! Jason suggested something similar to Greg:
Greg replied the following on April 17:
@OscarD and @calebp, I am just tagging you to let you know you are right that a major motivation for Greg is signalling his concern for AI risk (see quote just above).
Yes, this. The major motivation is signalling, or “putting my money where my mouth is”. But also, the loans available to me (e.g. Aave) might not have that much better interest rates over the timescale.
This isn’t really against Zach’s point, but presumably, a lot of Greg’s motivation here is signalling that he is serious about this belief and having a bunch of people in this community see it for advocacy reasons. I think that taking out a loan wouldn’t do nearly as well on the advocacy front as making a public bet like this.
This isn’t true if Greg values animal welfare donations above most non-AI things by a sufficient amount. He could have tried to shop around for more favorable conditions with someone else in EA circles but it seems pretty likely that he’d end up going with this one. There’s no market for these bets.
What’s the relevant threshold here? Greg has to prefer $10k going to animal charities in 3 years’ time over that $10k going partly to debt interest and partly to whatever he wants?
Thanks for the comment, mlsbt!
I think Greg would have been happy to go ahead with this bet regardless of my donation plans.
For reference, Greg has had a similar offer to this bet for around a year on X, although I guess many do not know about it (I did not until 2 months ago).
Yes, I would go ahead regardless of the other party’s plans for their winnings (but for the record I very much approve of Vasco’s valuing of animal welfare).
I originally intended this bet to be made with enemies, not friends[1]. i.e. I was hoping an e/acc would take it, rather than an EA!
I’m using “friend” in a general sense here, as in someone broadly value aligned. I don’t actually know Vasco.
Want to chip in that the interest for this post and huge comment thread lends evidence towards the bet being good for Greg’s reason below, even if he could have done far better on the odds/financial front.
”Also, the signalling value of the wager is pretty important too imo. I want people to put their money where their mouth is if they are so sure that AI x-risk isn’t a near term problem. And I want to put my money where my mouth is too, to show how serious I am about this.”
I would be interested in @Greg_Colbourn’s thoughts here! Possibly part of the value is in generating discussion and publicly defending a radical idea, rather than just the monetary EV. But if so maybe a smaller bet would have made sense.
Yes (see comments above in this thread). I think a smaller amount would not have the same impact (there is already Caplan’s bet with Yudkowsky) - it needs to be actually a significant amount of money. I have actually offered to go up to $250k (worst case I can sell my rental house to pay off the bet; and I do have significant other investments).
So far I am in discussion with a couple of others for similar amounts to the bet in OP, but the problem of guaranteeing my payout is proving quite a difficult one[1]. I guess making it direct donations makes things a lot easier.
My preferred method is trading on my public reputation (which I value higher than the bet amounts); but I can’t expect people to take my word for it.
It could also be done by drawing up a contract with my house as collateral, but I’ve been told that this likely wouldn’t be enforceable.
Then there is using escrow (but the escrow needs to be trusted; and the funds tied up in the escrow—and I prefer to hold crypto, which complicates things).
Then there are crypto smart contracts, but these need to be trusted, and also massively overcollateralised to factor in deep market drawdowns (with the opportunity cost that brings).